A boot sale bargain - not my usual area of interest but for 50p I could not really turn it down!
As part of my ‘front loading for retirement’ I managed to track down a number of board games from my, well, board game era - and these included the two you see above. Submarine is a detailed tactical level ‘submarine versus a convoy’ style game and was a great favourite of mine from ‘back in the day’. The RN and the Kriegsmarine feature, along with the US and Japan as well as Italy, France and Russia. the rules are very much of the time - the game was originally published by Battleline and was designed by Steve Peek (who worked alongside S. Craig Taylor Jr of Flat Top fame).
Bismarck needs little introduction from me and this version is the second edition published by Avalon Hill. The search system is very good and the game features most of the major vessels for the early war period with a tactical system that covers basic, intermediate and advanced options - the latter uses a tabletop rather than a grid. A couple of expansions were produced - one covering the operation against the Graf Spee and another which covered the ‘pre Bismarck’ period so Scharnhorst and Gneisenau took centre stage against assorted elements of the Home Fleet. All good fun and eminently gameable as relatively few models are needed.
The book you see was a cheeky boot sale bargain from this morning. Not my usual ‘bag’ but I will read it and would happily pass on to anyone with a deeper interest in the period.
On that note I will Finnish….. :-)
6 comments:
David,
That book is one of the best books written about the Winter War by Finns and published in English.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
It certainly looks interesting but I cannot see me turning it into a game anytime soon - says no wargamer ever……. :-)
The aerial dimension is a lot of fun - Brewster Buffaloes, MS 406s and Hurricanes against whatever the Russian had - I16s etc.
All the best,
DC
David -
I would also have snapped up that 'Winter War' book in a flash. I have played out an action from that war based on a scenario in Tim Gow's Megablitz, but using a rather simplified Megablitz/ Hexblitz/ PW game system. If you are interested, here's the action...
https://archdukepiccolo.blogspot.com/2018/03/suomussalmi-cobbled-scenario.html
The thing runs to 3 more posts.
Cheers,
Ion
Hello there Archduke,
Since writing my post I have dipped into the book and it makes for a really good read. It is not a period I am very familiar with but one can always learn something new! I have played a number of aerial games set during the period using Axis and Allies: Angels 20 which were great fun - Buffaloes versus I16s makes for a fun game!
I will check out the post for sure.
All the best,
DC
David,
There are some interesting Memoire ‘44 Winter War scenarios here = https://memoir44fans.com/t/the-winter-war-a-new-campaign-for-you-all/276
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
Many thanks for these! It looks rather more tempting than I thought it would be……
Oh dear….
All the best,
DC
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